Patron Saint #10: Deborah Remington - The Future Looks Back

Ackia -  color screenprint - 1975, Deborah Remington

“My work concerns the paradoxes of visual perception, the enigmas and quirks, and how it all forms the basis for our realities. The impact, excitement, and energies created by incongruity, juxtaposition and opposites all interest me.

The images are couched in paradoxical terms and must challenge the mind’s eye, must invoke opposites and hold them in tension. The work at times seems to refer to something in reality, but then the reference is denied. Identity; the fusion of so many experiences, so many inquiries, so many intuitions is also a primary issue.”

- Deborah Remington, from a quote found here.

"...Drawing doesn’t have to have color for me. The Japanese would always say, ‘Can’t you see the color there in the black and white?’ It’s implied, and if you’re a really good artist and if the paintings are wonderful enough and if they really sing, then the viewer gets a sense of color. That influenced my work a lot, mostly the philosophy of calligraphy.”

- Deborah Remington, from Inside and Around the 6 Gallery with Co-Founder Deborah Remington 

(via a 2008 interview with Nancy M. Grace)

"Anyway I followed the whole gang of howling poets to the reading at Gallery Six that night, which was, among other important things, the night of the birth of the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance. Everyone was there. It was a mad night. And I was the one who got things jumping by going around collecting dimes and quarters from the rather stiff audience standing around in the gallery and coming back with three huge gallon jugs of California Burgundy and getting them all piffed so that by eleven o'clock when Alvah Goldbook was reading his, wailing his poem "Wail" drunk with arms outspread everybody was yelling "Go! Go! Go!" (like a jam session) and old Rheinhold Cacoethes the father of the Frisco poetry scene was wiping his tears in gladness."

- Excerpt from The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, 1958

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by 

              madness, starving hysterical naked, 

       dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn 

              looking for an angry fix, 

       angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly 

              connection to the starry dynamo in the

machinery of night, 

       who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat 

              up smoking in the supernatural darkness of 

              cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities 

              contemplating jazz, 

       who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and 

              saw Mohammedan angels staggering on

tenement roofs illuminated, 

       who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes 

              hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy 

              among the scholars of war..."

- The initial lines of Howl by Allen Ginsberg, 1955, found here (with audio).

“This was the time of the Rosenbergs and the [Estes] Kefauver hearings, the Hollywood blacklisting. It was horrible. The police were everywhere, and it was kind of a fascist country. This was the climate within which and against which we were working. We were trying to break all the rules. It didn’t matter: you just broke the rules. You rarely got anything substantial out of it, but by hit and miss we did.”

- Deborah Remington, from Inside and Around the 6 Gallery with Co-Founder Deborah Remington (via a 2008 interview with Nancy M. Grace)

***

"It was a great night, a historic night in more ways than one..." wrote Jack Kerouac in 1958, for his semi-autobiographical Beat novel, "The Dharma Bums." He was referring to an actual event, a poetry reading that took place in a San Francisco art gallery - the 6 Gallery - October 7, 1955. 

In his thinly veiled account, Kerouac mentions a number of Beat luminaries on the scene that night.  Alvah Goldbook was, of course, the poet, Allen Ginsberg, who astounded the crowd with an impassioned reading of his definitive poem "Howl". "Old Rheinhold Cacoethes", on the other hand, was Kenneth Rexroth, while Kerouac's close friend friend, Gary Snyder, appears as Japhy Ryder. Earlier, he mentions a "delicate pale handsome" poet, Ike O'Shay, referring to a very young Michael McClure*. Of that night, McClure would later write: "Ginsberg read on to the end of the poem, which left us standing in wonder, or cheering and wondering, but knowing at the deepest level that a barrier had been broken, that a human voice and body had been hurled against the harsh wall of America..."

Deborah Remington as an art student in the 1950s - Photo credit: unknown
Currently found: Remington's NYT (2010) obituary (click to enlarge)

Oddly enough, one figure who does not enter into Kerouac's fictional account - although, certainly worthy of a mention - was a six-foot tall, redheaded woman** - and one of the six Beats who owned the gallery - artist, Deborah Remington. (Her co-owners were artists, Wally Hedrick, Hayward King and David Simpson, and the poets, John Ryan and Jack Spicer.) Granted, Kerouac was loaded on California Burgundy - Dionysus being the god of lost histories - and focused on the Beat literati, but, it's hard to imagine that such a strikingly beautiful young woman would've fallen outside his radar. Then again, judging by her own brief account (via an interview excerpt included in this .pdf file), Remington fails to recall the presence of Kerouac and several members of his poetic posse that night. Go figure.

Easter Sunday at Grandfather's House

(Retitled: "Easter Sunday at Grandfather's House")

Well, I was going to enter the MOCA competition, and the image above would've been my entry - had there been no "Alfred", the recent freak snowstorm that blacked out all of Connecticut the Saturday before Halloween (my town remained in the dark for 5 days)... and the day before the competition ended. Was it a simple twist of fate... or just too much tweaking of an image - and rampant procrastination - on my part? Does it matter? Not really. As you can see by the winning entries, "Lemkovyna" would've appeared like a total anomaly. But then again, it would, as it's focal point is, in fact, a total anomaly... that is, a trans-figure!

Where do I and my muse come up with these things? This was, if you must know, my operative question all the while I was creating it's central, glutinous motif. At its completion, however, there was that magic moment of recognition, when I knew just what it was on a personal level... Why, it's obvious, I thought to myself, this strange organic mass is a clump of Easter egg mushrooms - what a marvelous find! But why Easter egg mushrooms? So, I continued creating this image... housing this strange organism within an almost Faberge-like egg - albeit rustic - realizing I needed an antique fabric as a background for this little treasure. It was the antique fabric which, in the end, was the give-away... for it was, I think, a swatch of fabric that belonged to my grandparents I had stashed away.

All those Easter Sundays at my Grandpa's house when I was a small child... and that mysterious hole which represents my familial history... Lemkovyna, (pronounced "lem ko VEE na", or "lem KO vee na"), an/or Lemkivshchyna in the Carpathian mountains - specifically in Galicia - where it seems - although I'm not quite sure -  both sets of grandparents emigrated to America from at the turn of the 19th/20th Century. They were Russian/Ukrainian - or, more appropriately, Rusyn... but, by the time their grandchildren arrived on the scene, America was in a "cold war" with Russia... and, hence, my heritage was "disappeared". No one, certainly not my grandparents, ever spoke of that place from whence they came... not to their own children - my parents - and certainly not to their grandchildren.* I distinctly remember my father saying to his father that he'd better not let it be known that he continued to write to a brother in Russia... hence, a relation I'll never know.

So, the only bits of being Russian or Rusyn to be found came wrapped in the guise of religious holidays - specifically the Byzantine Catholic (Russian Orthodox) version, and specifically Easter. Lemkovyna - my image - then, was an unconscious ode to that lost identity... and Easter Sundays at Grandpa's house. For a child, it was a rich, darkly mysterious place... and there I am in the photo below, in my Easter bonnet at my grandparent's home... sitting in the only patch of sunlight I could find, and snapped into eternity by my Dad's old Ansco camera.

* Later note (4/14): Adding to this mystery is an interesting fact I recently discovered... that is,  "Galician Slaughter." This was, apparently, the last peasant uprising in European history. And, it's somewhat troubling, as I have no idea if my ancestors were involved and there are no elders left in the family to question. I believe most Americans have held on to their history more tenaciously than those of us of Eastern European descent, but, I can't help but wonder why this might be so.

In the last analysis, I have no real knowledge of exactly where my grandparents emigrated from, or, for that matter when. A great deal more research would have to be done before I could determine  the reality of the family history. As a child, I was told I was of Russian descent. Period. Only much later, after reading about the history of my parent's Russian Orthodox church did the word "Lemko" surface. My father's father belonged to a Lemko organization... but, I don't know about my mother's parents or my father's mother.

(Detail, Easter Sunday at Grandfather's House)
- 2011, D (click to enlarge)

Then, too, there's the unbelievably confusing history of the area itself. Lemkovyna - and/or parts of it - seems to have passed hands from one country to another... Moravia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia, etc. Meanwhile, the Lemkos are themselves divided as to what country or to what ethnicity they belong. More alarming, there's a history of massacres, deportation, "ethnic cleansing", and the whole nine yards connected with the Lemko people. I suppose it's no wonder that any descendants - specifically Americans, should have little conception of their heritage.

I'm aware of only one celebrated American Lemko, who actually embraced his heritage, and that was, believe it or not, artist Andy Warhol (Andre Varhola, Jr), whose Lemko parents hailed from an area now in Slovakia.

Actually, one of my father's cousins once had the family tree drawn up, and it appears that one branch of the family originated in Romania around the time of Vlad the Impaler! In any case, I think we see the problem by now.

But, after reconsidering all of this, I've decided to rename the image that inspired this post. I am now calling it "Easter Sunday at Grandfather's House"... because, in the end, that was what the image brought to mind, and, ultimately, is all I really know. It may represent the mysteries of heritage, specifically mine - and, as a Transfigure, may represent something beyond - but, currently, no other title seems genuine.

Creating Art: a Mediumistic Experience

Monochromatic Whisper (Trans-Fossil) - Digital - 2012, 2011, Dia Sobin

And, by that, I am not referring to the materials, i.e., "mediums" used by an artist... I am instead referring to something more in line with a "psychic" medium, but not in reference to communicating with dead entities - though this actually may be the case for some artists.  I am referring to art which is, in a sense, a collaboration with entities or an intelligence that very well may be a reflection of ones unconscious self but, in my experience, feel(s) somewhat "other".

I generally refer to this unseen, but felt and/or intuited, entity as my "muse". Artists traditionally have muses, of course, but these are generally women-in-the-flesh for whom a male artist is inspired by. I am referring to an incorporeal intelligence. One who informs regarding ones work, but  generally doesn't impinge on ones life otherwise. I am also referring to an experience more subtle than the paranormal exercise of "channeling;"in this case, an actual separate human personality is not necessarily involved.

I note this interesting definition of the word "medium" in my computer's dictionary:

"the intervening substance through which impressions are conveyed to the senses or a force acts on objects at a distance" which, oddly enough - as its referring to material objects in a physical sense - might be weirdly relevant here... the muse certainly seems like a "non-local" entity.

In many ways, the attribution of something essentially of a metaphysical or spiritual nature seems incongruous with something so mechanical as a computer.... but, in my experience, as I was becoming increasingly involved in digital art, another muse seemed to increasingly emerge. While I have been an artist almost as long as I've been alive - and we're talking over 40 years - and have always been closely in touch with several muses (depending upon the project at hand), the feeling of a collaboration with an "other" was never as strong as it was when I "went digital" so to speak. It's very weird... I'd be interested to know if I am alone in this experience. Are we talking about a phenomenon that is electrically-enhanced? Are we talking perhaps about the ways in which the "psychic internet" can interact with the WWW or vice versa? Just wondering.

The image above is entitled "Monochromatic Whisper". I chose this image to illustrate this post because the "whisper" of my muse - as an "alien" intelligence - is very much prominent here. The foundation for the image was a photo of a one-celled creature I found online which I thought was rather interesting but, as I was looking for a different reference, I passed it by. My muse, however, felt differently... and, before I knew it, this one-celled creature was transforming into a fossilized version of something my muse and I have been producing a whole series of images of these past few years; that is, a number of small, artificial life forms of varying "species". Part organic, and part mechanical, the life forms originate in some imaginary future - a time and, indeed, a place, my muse understands far better than I. I had never even contemplated a fossilized ALF before, so, this one was a revelation. More ALFs will be appearing on Trans-D in the future... and I have more to say about them*. But, suffice to say now, this variety of transfiguration is an example of where my muse shines, and regardless of what anyone may see or not see, I will never question the integrity of the muse in this matter. Thematically (and, very often technically) it's word is gospel! **

Meanwhile, I did write a short essay about muses earlier this year; it will appear, following this post, in "Following the Muse - the Psychopomp". But, as always, if you are a creative and you suspect you are working with a muse, I'd be very interested in what you have to say! The subject of muses usually follows the individual artist to the grave and no one is ever the wiser. But if Transdimensionalism is ever to be understood, then I believe that all of our "others", regardless of how we experience them, must be accounted for. Science may discount subjective, anecdotal, imaginal and intuitive experience, but art wouldn't exist without it.

* see Still Life With Artificial Life Forms

** ... and somewhat prescient... as in, what goes around, comes around... see the end of this 2014 post.

Alchemy of a Found Object

Alchemy of a Found Object - triptych (details) - 2009, DS
(click to enlarge)

"Jung held that in human life we possess two sources of Gnosis, or salvific knowledge. One of these is Lumen Dei, the light proceeding from the unmanifest Godhead, the other is Lumen Naturae, the light hidden in matter and the forces of nature. While the Divine Light may be discerned and appreciated in revelation and in the mystery of the Incarnation, the Light of Nature needs to be released through alchemy before it can become fully operative. God redeems humanity, but nature needs to be redeemed by human alchemists, who are able to induce the process of transformation which alone is capable of liberating the light imprisoned in physical creation."

- Stephan A. Hoeller - excerpt from: "C. G. Jung and the Alchemical Renewal" - Gnosis Magazine,1988

"Alchemy of a Found Object" (above) is the result of a "happy accident"... but, then again, "accidents" are an important part of the Transfigurative process. Accidents and synchronicity seem to be the modus operandi of the psyche... a type of subliminal, alchemical process that unites ones inner and outer worlds. Consciously, of course, we choose to plan our agendas rationally with conventional goals in mind. Unconsciously, however, the tables are turned, so to speak, and the psyche must unfold its own mysterious agenda.

An excellent online Alchemical reference can be found here.

The Trans-figure

By definition, figurative art is defined as art representing objects or figures from the "real world". Transfigurativism could refer to just about everything else which, indeed, has form, but never can and never will be found in the corporeal world as such. In its broader aspect, I suppose, this might include any variety of fantasy art. But as I've already intimated, there's a hierarchy involved.  This does not, however, in any way, refer to the quality of the art so described.  There is an immense amount of fantasy work out there which is wonderfully crafted and beautiful to behold. But then, the figures it represents can be recognized along fairly conventional lines w/ standard varieties of perception and mental references. Drawings of unicorns, dragons, angels, for example, are fairly easy to recognize. They represent items from the collective mythos, as do the robotic humans, demonic constructs, faerie folk and three-headed dogs.

Transfigurativism in its highest state, however, is something else. That is, not only does the trans-figure represent something incorporeal, but it represents something that has never been seen before - that is, something which even falls outside of the mythological range. It has, in fact, never been visualized till the artist drew it out of the aether, and it will never be seen anywhere else again unless someone tries to replicate it. In ways, there are many similarities to visionary art, but unlike that genre, there is never a "moral" to the story, neither illustrated nor implied. Once again, in its highest state, there is never a "story" to begin with.

Transfigurative art is also closely related to varieties of Abstract art and Surrealism, and in many ways the disciplines converge. They diverge when the word "imagination" becomes the descriptive term, because the transfigurative image is not "imagined", nor can it be "imagined". It is simply the object that is, and is wholly self-referential. It defines reality on its own terms. and this "reality" is not a matter of dispute.

Of course, you're going ask me, well, if all the above is true, then where does a trans-figure come from? It comes from synchronistic accidents, trance-states, "automatic" states and any state which enables the artist to receive, retrieve or draw upon unconscious material. The trans-figure is an emergent, an original impulse, and the first and last of its kind. In a strange way, more or less, it seems as if it is drawn out of nowhere, but at the same time is wholly and authentically itself. It is often a weird, other-worldly image... alien and "other", but, in its own way faintly recognizable on a collective subliminal level... for example, it is similar to the bio-morphic ghost images that appear to unfold behind your eyes as you fall asleep, but not the recognizable images that appear in your dreams. If a trans-figure is successful, it can be felt, and felt to exist within its own trans-dimension, but, fundamentally it is not an "idea". By "felt", however, I'm not referring to emotional states in the ordinary sense. Trans-figures seem to transcend recognizable human emotional states as there is no reference to material that might cause, describe, or express an archetypal emotive reaction or response.

Incidentally, the image above is the last panel of the triptych described in the "Alchemy 1:01" post. It is a difficult process to describe; how this and its 2 sister images emerged, except to say that they did, in fact, emerge, and my role as an artist was merely to document what I was observing on a subliminal level. It's as if the original object - the mysterious bone - was, all the while, saying to me: "look at me... no, really look at me". If this all sounds rather "airy-fairy", then so be it. My guess is that many serious artists have been "called" to the craft, so to speak, for similar reasons, though, perhaps, it's not an issue they care to discuss. "Drawing from life" then, is a relative expression... there is "life", and then again, there is "life".

There is also the matter of the "muse" which might further define the transfigurative process.. But that subject will be addressed in a later post.

See Alchemy of a Found Object

Ode To Orfeo - Annotated

Ode to Orfeo was another one of my intitial Transfigurist images, in memory of a tropical fish I knew for a few days whom I named Orfeo. He was a variety known as the "Coral Beauty" and he really was an exquisite little fish... more charming and intelligent than any little fish has the right to be; that is, trapped in a tank and dependent on a fairly stupid human who hasn't much of a clue as to its needs. He used to watch TV with me and listen to music - at least it seemed as if he was -  and play hide and seek in this huge whelk shell I'd placed in the tank. He'd hide in the depths of the shell for awhile, then peek out of the side of the opening till I called: "Oh, Orfeo..." in a sing-song sort of voice... and out he'd come, dash around for awhile and then hide in the shell again.


Then, one night Orfeo's gills became tangled in a "decorative" (deadly, apparently) sea weed, and, despite frantic efforts, he could not be saved. I was devastated. I buried him in the family burial plot next to my brother's gravestone.  A few nights later I had a dream... just a snippet really... a vision of this little clown-like man peering at me from around the corner of a wall with huge smile on its face, and then vanishing. I woke up immediately and thought of Orfeo. I imagined he was saying good-bye.


The foundation for this image was an x-ray of a human skull. Overall, it can be categorized as surrealist, except for its one, genuine Transfigurative element - which might also be seen as the defining Transdimensional element - and that is the enigmatic, gold area between the mirror-imaged fish and the "bowl". A number of elements and strange patterns found themselves within this area, and in the image overall. Consciously, I'm not quite sure what I meant by the image to this day, but, my muse informs me on an unconscious level that it is exactly correct.


Ode to Orfeo was basically completed in 2008, then reformatted and re-realized in 2010. I envision it printed on a silk scroll, edged in gold thread, with some odd variety of gold tassels hanging from it.

Ode to Orfeo detail - added 5/28/2014
(click to enlarge)

Ode to Orfeo detail - added 5/28/2014

(click to enlarge)

Alchemy 1:01: Definitions of Terms

Above is detail from what I now consider to be my first digitally produced transfigurative image, from a three-panel triptych entitled: Alchemy of a Found Object.

***

The text which originally appeared here was removed. I have replaced it with definitions of terms that previously were posted on the sidebar of this blog.

Definitions of terms found within this blog:

In trying to describe my work, I am often dismayed to find that there are no word definitions from any source which are adequate for my purposes. Ultimately, it becomes necessary to create my own terms. These are not intended to be my personal "trademarks", however, merely definitions that I am throwing out there for consideration. They - and subsequent term definitions - will appear here, and are (tentatively) as follows:

trans-dimension - noun - a dimension without (apparent) physical mass that cannot be measured by use of conventional instruments and/or the mathematical co-ordinates used to define ordinary physical space.

This includes higher or lower dimensions beyond those already excepted as scientific fact, varieties of interstitial space, and negative, or "black"space.

transdimensional - adj. - That which relates to or can be described by a trans-dimension.

Can also pertain to phenomena that might exist within such a dimension and/or phenomena which have the ability to cross dimensions.

Transdimensionalism - noun - that which alludes to and/or is described by the term transdimensional.

In art - An artistic movement which is representative of the transdimensional, i.e., abstractions that either dispense with formal alignments of positive and negative space, or those which illuminate the relativity and/or symmetries ultimately binding them. Also pertains to that art which attempts to transcend boundaries of space and time, as in certain examples of abstract art and surrealism.

trans-figure - noun - In art, a figure which is not representative of an actual, corporeal figure and/or object. Also, a figure which is not necessarily metaphorical for any known object or ideology, existing wholly by and as itself and, as such, not necessarily obeying the physical laws of space. See transdimensional.

In digitally produced art, the trans-figure is often a transformed or a "morphed" figure. On the lower end of the hierarchy we have the simple "photo-shopped" figure, intentionally created to amuse and entertain. The genuine trans-figure, however, is generally more complex. See transfigurativism.

transfigurative - adj - defines art which is figurative, but not representative of actual existent figures or objects in 3-dimensional space. (See trans-figure). Very often, but not always, "space" is represented as transdimensional, whereby the "object" is rendered as an emergent.

Transfigurativism - noun - In art: that variety of art which employs the use of tranfigurative elements or the trans-figure. Transfigurativism, in its pure state, has no symbolic, theological, sociological and or political analogies or meaning. It, and the objects (trans-figures) it represents are ultimately and essentially a product of the unconscious mind and/or the inspired imagination, and that which might relate to incorporeal, often intangible, metaphysical experience(s).

Transfigurist, Transfigural, Transfigurism - variations on Transfigurativist, Transfigurative, Transfigurativism.

Welcome to Trans-D!

Greetings!




Digital art - as a medium and a discipline  - is still in its infancy, and while it's impossible to describe or predict all the many styles, directions and permutations that presently exist or will evolve, one has to start somewhere. And I think it's important that the artists who use a digital medium take that initial step and attempt to describe for themselves and others what is actually occurring before the critics, spin-doctors, and art historians have the last word.

Granted, formulas and formulations, descriptive criticism, etc., are already out there (I have yet to read them), but, in this day and age, with oceans of information continuously lapping at one's door via the latest technology, it's difficult for an artist to find the time and/or patience to navigate and assimilate all the information floating around. Individual, solitary artists, like myself, who do not presently live in cosmopolitan areas, find themselves in a type of vacuum. I think this is especially true for digital artists, because it so easy to fall under the spell of a medium which does not require or involve a great deal of interaction with the world at large. The digital artist does not need to go out in the field to paint landscapes or portraits. .. and there is not even a necessity to go out of the door to accrue supplies. Gone are the days of the great salons, the great exhibits, the tiny smoke-filed cafes, the glaring rivalry.

So, the purpose of this blog is not merely to carve my own niche in the digital world, but to establish a spring board and a forum, so that digital artists - and those creatives interested in either digital art, art in general, or art theory -  might begin to discuss and develop their own theories and descriptions of what they do. Multi-media is implied. It is never too early to begin to place oneself and ones work in a more or less historical perspective. I would also like to interface with artists who work in a similar vein as myself, that is, digital artists whose work might fall under the category of Transdimensional or Transfigurative, but this does not exclude artists in other mediums or those who may find these terms of broader interest, specifically those in "paranormal" fields and other fields to which Transdimensionalism, and theories thereof, might apply.

I will be posting links, and in some cases, representational information on this blog showcasing related digital artists, and eventually related artists and or theorists in different fields. Presently, however, if you are or know of an artist whose work might be related to the work shown on this blog or work that my fall under the headings of Transdimensional or Transfigurative, please inform me and/or introduce us.

Also, I would also like to post a series of digital art resource links on the sidebar that will be helpful to other artists, so, once again, either contact me or leave links in the comment section. As of now, the link section on the sidebar of this blog is a work in progress.

Meanwhile, I began writing small, random essays late last year, which will also appear on this blog as well as more detailed descriptions of Transdimensionalism and Transfigurativism. It should go without saying, that my ideas are as yet not fully formed - nothing is, shall we say, carved in stone -  and all feedback and suggestions are welcome.

As for myself, I would probably fall under the category of a Transfigurativist, or Transfigurist (a descriptive term I invented for my work in 2007) , however, it is one of my Transdimensional - definitions of these terms are on the sidebar of this blog* - offerings I have posted above. My approach to Transdimensionalism is through the use of patterns and symmetries, but I imagine there are as many approaches as there are artists who are drawn to this concept. Certain fractal art, for instance, might also be included within this category. In the end, I believe "categories", ultimately depend upon the individual artist's intent.

Cheers!

Dia

Contact:

araqinta@att.net

(Important: Include the word "Trans-D" in the subject line.)

* As of this writing, the only related word I could find in Wiktionary is this definition of "Transdimensional". (This is perhaps not altogether too far off!) ;-)